The Los Angeles Lakers captured a 94-85 victory in Game 2 on Tuesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Lakers took advantage of the difficult shooting night for the Wolves and were aggressive on both ends of the floor. For the majority of the competition, L.A. had the advantage and prevented Minnesota from gaining a winning lead.
The Lakers were led by All-Star guard Luka Doncic, who scored 31 points on 45 percent shooting from the field. He also dominated the boards and secured 12 rebounds. Doncic flirted with a triple-double with his nine assists.
Austin Reaves was also reliable for the team. He had 16 points, five rebounds and five assists on a 50 percent shooting clip. From long range, however, he couldn’t make a shot and missed all of his six attempts.
The highlight for the Lakers was their defensive performance against the Wolves, holding them to a 38 percent shooting from the field. Reaves credited how they matched Minnesota’s physicality, giving them the win.
“No, I just thought we played hard.,” Reaves said. “I spoke about how they play every single day, regular season, postseason. They play hard as shit. And if you don’t meet that physicality, the physicality then you change the result. So that was, emphasis going into the night was, play hard.”
“I think it just goes back to the other night when we basically got punked,” Reaves said. “Let’s just call a spade to spade. They came in here Game 1 and punked us. You can tell from the energy in the locker room after the game that nobody was worried about what we have.”
Reaves and the Los Angeles Lakers look to end Game 3 on Friday with a 2-1 series lead.
Wolves’ star was “confused” with the Los Angeles Lakers’ zone defense
Anthony Edwards didn’t have the best outside shooting performance in Game 2. Against the Los Angeles Lakers, Edwards finished with 25 points and shot a lowly 25 percent from deep. After the game, the three-time All-Star spoke about the defensive strategy the Lakers had, which confused and threw him off.
“This was the first time I’ve seen this one,” Edwards said. “Every time I caught the ball at the top, it was kind of like they was in a zone. Even when we cut guys through, they just stayed.”
Anthony Edwards described the Lakers' defense on him tonight as "kinda like a zone," and mentioned in another answer that it was "kind of confusing" pic.twitter.com/DZoIWom3QD
— Dane Moore (@DaneMooreNBA) April 23, 2025
Although Edwards had slightly more points in Game 2, the star guard had a better outing from long range in Game 1. He scored 22 points and shot 44.4 percent from deep, leading to a win.
In two games, Ant-Man has averaged 23.5 points, seven rebounds and 4.5 assists. The Wolves need Edwards to be in his best performance for Game 3 against the Los Angeles Lakers.
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Reign also writes NBA and WNBA news updates on Sportskeeda. He started as a feature writer for AirAlamo, an NBA website that covers the San Antonio Spurs. Some of his work can also be seen on Valley of the Suns, a Phoenix Suns-centric website, where he served as a contributing writer.
